The present invention relates to a thermal printer and more particularly to a thermal printer that outputs a monochromic (black and white) image and a color image onto a thermal recording material such as a film or a recording paper in a clear form by a simple operation.
The image recording (thermal image recording) with thermal recording material such as thermal film is utilized in recording an image for an ultrasonic wave diagnosis or the like. Also, recently, in view of advantages that any wet type process is unnecessary and handling is easy, the above-described thermal image recording is putting into practice not only for a recording of a small size image such as an ultrasonic wave diagnosis but also for an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) diagnosis, for a medical diagnosis that needs a large size image such as an X-ray diagnosis or the like.
As is well known, for the thermal image recording, by using a thermal head in which heat-generating elements for heating the thermal recording material imagewise to thereby record the image are arranged in one direction, the thermal head and the thermal recording material are moved relative to each other in a direction perpendicular to the arrangement direction of the heat-generating elements to thereby perform the image recording. In the thermal image recording, it should be noted that energy is fed to each heat-generating element of the thermal head on the basis of an image signal to heat each heat-generating element imagewise to thereby perform the image recording.
The known thermal image recording systems are categorized basically into two types, i.e., a direct thermal recording (direct thermal print) for recording an image by using the thermal recording material including a monochromic or multicolor thermal coloring material and a transfer recording system using an ink ribbon or the like for the monochromic or multicolor transfer recording. Various kinds of specific system are put into practice for each recording system.
By the way, the monochromic image has been still mainly utilized for the medical image by the above-described thermal recording and the amount of the output is large. However, a color image is utilized for an ultrasonic wave color Doppler blood flow photographic image out of the medical images or a part of the medical images such as three-dimensional images of various CTs (Computer Tomography).
Therefore, in the conventional thermal printer, in order to obtain both monochromic image and color image, the following systems have been adopted:
(1) a system in which both monochromic image and color image are recorded by a transfer recording system such as a sublimation transfer system or the like and ink ribbons are replaced in accordance with the monochromic image or the color image; and
(2) a system in which the monochromic image is recorded by a direct recording system such as a direct thermal print system, whereas the color image is recorded by the transfer recording system such as the sublimation transfer system, and only in the color image recording, the ink ribbon is loaded.
However, in such a system in which the ink ribbons are replaced or in which the ink ribbon is loaded/unloaded, in the case where the monochromic image recording and the color image recording are frequently switched, the replacement of the ink ribbons, the operation of loading/unloading are frequently required so that the operation becomes complicated.
Furthermore, in the conventional thermal printer, to obtain a color image, since it is necessary to activate at least three colors such as cyan (C), magenta (M) and yellow (Y), it is necessary to perform the image forming process at least three times on a single piece of the thermal recording material without any positional displacement. For this reason, it is necessary to reciprocatingly move the thermal recording material, but it is necessary to align the recording start position of the thermal recording material in place for every image forming process. To this end, a transport roller pair having a function of a capstan roller is provided downstream of a platen roller in confronting relation with a thermal head, and the thermal recording material is clamped by the transport roller pair normally during the recording operation to thereby control the transport amount thereof. As a result, in the color image recording, it is unavoidable to produce the portion of the thermal recording material where the print is impossible.
For this reason, in the case where the monochromic image and the color image are obtained in the conventional thermal printer, in a print where the monochromic image is formed on a transparent film as in the X-ray diagnosis image, not only non-recorded region where no image is formed is wasted but also in the case where the image is observed by a back light such as a sharkasuten, the back light comes directly through the non-recorded region, resulting in hindrance in medical diagnosis.
Furthermore, recently, a so-called total medical system in which various medical inspection devices, processing devices for processing the data and images, a display unit for outputting the processed data and image to a predetermined output device, a printer and the like are mutually connected to each other has been realized. In such a system, since a plurality of medical inspection devices, a plurality of processing devices and a plurality of output devices are used, in order to output the image, it is very troublesome to recognize which output device is available (or which output device should be selected) depending upon the fact that the image is monochromic or colorful.
In the case where the above-described monochromic image recording and color image recording should be performed with a single thermal printer, the following points may be noticed. Namely, in case of the monochromic image, it is possible to obtain the image through the image forming process only through one operation, whereas in case of the color image, normally, the image forming process is required at least three times.
This is because, in order to obtain the color image, since at least three kinds of color layers of cyan (C), magenta (M) and yellow (Y) are used, these are to be processed for imaging under the independent conditions. The important thing in this case is that the positional displacement of the image should be avoided among three image forming processes.
For this reason, in the conventional thermal printer, in the case where the color image is to be formed, the capstan roller for transporting the thermal recording material is disposed behind the platen roller (on the downstream side). When the thermal recording material for the color image formation is reciprocatingly moved by the capstan roller, the image forming process is performed during the transport in one direction so that the positional displacement of the images is avoided while the thermal recording material is caused to face the thermal head three times to perform the three image forming processes.
The problem in such a system thus constructed is that a portion where the image could not formed corresponding to a distance between the platen roller and the capstan roller is generated at the leading edge portion of the thermal recording material. This is unavoidable in the case where it is necessary to reciprocatingly move the thermal recording material as in obtaining the color image. However, in the case where the monochromic image is obtained and the reciprocation as for the color image is not necessary for the monochromic image, there is a problem that the thermal recording material is apparently wasted.
Furthermore, in many cases, the monochromic image with the non-recorded portion is recorded on a transparent film such as an X-ray diagnosis image. Also, in many cases, the film is observed through a sharkasuten. Therefore, a ray of bright light of the sharkasuten comes through the film upon observation. Thus, there is a problem that not only the observer feels a shiny ray but also the ray hinders the reading of the shade (diagnosis).
The present invention has been made in view of the foregoing circumstances, in order to overcome the above-described problems inherent in the prior art, a primary object of the present invention is to provide a thermal printer that can output a monochromic image and a color image without any troublesome operation such as replacing ink ribbons and loading/unloading ink ribbons and more preferably can not generate a non-recorded region in case of the monochromic image.
The present invention has been made in view of the foregoing circumstances, in order to overcome the above-noted problems inherent in the prior art, a secondary object of the present invention is to provide a thermal printer in which the thermal recording material transport units are changed for the case of obtaining the monochromic image or for the case of obtaining the color image so that the non-recorded portion generated in the case of obtaining the monochromic image can be reduced as much as possible.
In order to attain the first object described above, the first aspect of the present invention provides a thermal printer comprising: a thermal recording head for recording an image in contact with thermal recording material at a predetermined pressure; and a platen roller that is arranged to face the thermal recording head and supports the thermal recording material that becomes an object to be recorded; wherein the thermal recording head records a monochromic image and a color image in a direct recording system.
It is preferable that the thermal recording material includes monochromic thermal recording material for recording the monochromic image and color thermal recording material for recording the color image and the thermal recording head records the monochromic image onto the monochromic recording material and the color image onto the color thermal recording material, respectively.
The thermal printer of the present invention further comprises a recording material feeding section for feeding the thermal recording material; and a judgment unit provided in the recording material feeding section for judging whether the thermal recording material is monochromic thermal recording material for recording the monochromic image or color thermal recording material for recording the color image.
The thermal printer of the present invention further comprises at least two recording material feeding sections of a first recording material feeding section for feeding monochromic thermal recording material for recording that monochromic image; and a second recording material feeding section for feeding color thermal recording material for recording the color image.
It is also preferable that, in the thermal printer of the present invention, the monochromic image is recorded on a transparent recording medium that is monochromic thermal recording material and the color image is recorded on a reflective recording medium that is color thermal recording material.
It is further preferable that a head pressure for depressing the thermal recording material at the predetermined pressure is changed by the thermal recording head when the monochromic image is recorded and when the color image is recorded.
The thermal printer of the present invention further comprises a plurality of kinds of thermal recording material transport units for transporting the thermal recording material; wherein a different unit is used among the plurality of kinds of thermal recording material transport units when the monochromic image is recorded and when the color image is recorded.
The thermal printer of the present invention further comprises an identification unit for identifying designated information from an external device for designating distinction as to whether the image to be recorded is the monochromic image or the color image.
The thermal printer of the present invention further comprises a designation unit for designating distinction as to whether the image to be recorded is the monochromic image or the color image.
It is also further preferable that the thermal recording material comprises monochromic thermal recording material including a heat responsible microcapsule in a color forming layer.
It is still further preferable that the monochromic image and the color image are medical inspection images.
The present invention provides a thermal printer comprising: a thermal recording head for recording an image in contact with thermal recording material at a predetermined pressure; and a platen roller that is arranged to face the thermal recording head and supports the thermal recording material that becomes an object to be recorded; wherein a head pressure of that thermal recording head for depressing that thermal recording material at the predetermined pressure is changed in accordance with a kind of that thermal recording material.
It is preferable that the thermal recording material includes monochromic thermal recording material for recording the monochromic image and color thermal recording material for recording the color image and the thermal recording head records the monochromic image onto the monochromic recording material and the color image onto the color thermal recording material, respectively.
In order to attain the second object described above, the second aspect of the present invention provides a thermal printer comprising: a thermal recording head for recording an image in contact with thermal recording material at a predetermined pressure; and a plurality of kinds of thermal recording material transport units for transporting the thermal recording material; wherein a different unit is used among the plurality of kinds of thermal recording material transport units when that monochromic image is recorded and when the color image is recorded.
It is preferable that one of the plurality of kinds of thermal recording material transport units is disposed to face the thermal recording head and is a platen roller for supporting the thermal recording material that becomes an object to be recorded, and the other is a capstan roller disposed behind the thermal recording head and the platen roller.
It is also preferable that a head pressure for depressing the thermal recording material at the predetermined pressure is changed by the thermal recording head when the monochromic image is recorded and when the color image is recorded.
The thermal printer of the present invention further comprises an identification unit for identifying designated information from an external device for designating distinction as to whether the image to be recorded is the monochromic image or the color image.
The thermal printer of the present invention further comprises a designation unit for designating distinction as to whether the image to be recorded is the monochromic image or the color image.
It is further preferable that the monochromic image and the color image are medical inspection images.